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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26872807">Something Old</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomthief_fee/pseuds/phantomthief_fee'>phantomthief_fee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Eternal Stream AU [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Autism Spectrum, Character Death, Implied/Refrenced Ableism, Isolation, Memory Loss, References to Depression, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Trapped Inside a Video Game, Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 22:00:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,415</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26872807</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomthief_fee/pseuds/phantomthief_fee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Reflections on the man who died to become Benrey</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Eternal Stream AU [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863709</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Eternal Stream HLVRAI AU</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Something Old</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Branden Hansen is lonely. But he’s used to it. He’s been lonely for most of his life. When you’re the weird kid who starts crying when he gets dirty and gets weird about certain textures and sounds, you get used to being alone. Other kids don’t want to hang out with you when you’re crying or screaming all the time about dumb stuff. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He did have one friend in high school, though. His name was Chester. They were both shy and awkward social outcasts. They were also both huge Half Life fans. Branden didn’t tell Chester about his huge crush on Gordon Freeman, but he’s pretty sure Chester knew anyway. He liked listening to Chester talk, especially about the little chatbot he made. Branden doesn’t know much about coding, he knew even less at that point, so Cheser’s knowledge was amazing. Chester’s friendship had made high school a little less unbearable. And Branden might have developed a teeny crush on him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not that he ever got up the guts to confess to Chester, though. He was always too scared of how Chester would react. He regrets not saying anything. They lost contact after Chester dropped out of college and basically dropped off the face of the earth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>...Branden hopes he’s doing alright.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He misses him a lot. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Without Chester’s warm smile...he’s more alone than ever before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it’s fine. He’s used to it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He spends most of his free time in his room, playing video games. He knows the stereotype and he knows he fits it to a T. Grown man who spends all his time playing video games and still lives with his parents. He knows it’s pathetic. It’s just that he doesn’t get paid enough to live on his own. He tried having roommates but...It didn’t work out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has friends online at least. Not many, but some. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s built up a bit of an online presence under the screenname “Benrey”. It’s like Barney, but wrong. Half Life is one of his special interests, so it only made sense to name himself after his favorite character.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Barney has always been Branden’s favorite character. He may be crushing on Gordon hard, but he vibes with Barney. He’s a goofy conspiracy theorist in Half Life 1, but by Half Life 2 he’s stepped up to the plate, proven he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>worth</span>
  </em>
  <span> something. Branden wants that. Not the alien invasion and rebellion thing, that’s way too stressful. He wants to prove he’s worth something. He wants people to see him as worthwhile.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s gotten really good at speedrunning. It’s one of the few things he’s good at, aside from knitting that is. He’s had a lot of practice, and there’s just something really fun to him about seeing how fast he can get through a game, especially when it involves bouncing around like he’s on a pogo stick. (Not that he’s ever actually </span>
  <b>been </b>
  <span>on a pogo stick). He plays other things too, though. He especially enjoys fucking around in g-mod with the numerous mods he’s installed. Wowozela and no-clipping are some of his favorites. He’s modded up a Half Life 1 Barney model to look like him and uses it for just about everything. It’s a pretty distinctive avatar and people online recognize him when they see it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes putting on a show, playing up the whole “Benrey” gamer persona. It feels nice not to have to be himself for a bit. Branden is painfully awkward and anxious all the time. Benrey might say the wrong things sometimes, but he’s laid back and chill and most of all confident. When he’s wearing the mask of Benrey, he doesn’t have to be afraid. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he is afraid. All the time. He’s afraid of everyone and everything because he’s never sure who’s going to react badly to something he says or does. There are so many unspoken rules he doesn’t understand and the world is so loud and overwhelming.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ideally, he would very much like to just stay in his room forever. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he can’t do that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has a job to make things a little easier for his parents. Not to mention he knows they would worry if he spent all his time in his room. They worry no matter what he does, honestly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He works at Walmart. He hates working at Walmart. He wishes he could work literally anywhere else. But he’s gotten fired from a ton of places and this was the only one he could find. He’s still on thin ice after the meltdown he had when on register duty, so he’s been moved to the back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has a hard time dealing with other people. He misunderstands instructions a lot, shuts down when overwhelmed, makes remarks other people deem inappropriate. He can’t handle a lot of “normal” work environments. He doesn’t know how to talk to people.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s why the job in Cincinnati fell through. That and the whole thing with roommates. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His parents are supportive. They understand that he’s doing his best. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t help but feel like a failure, though. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows it wasn’t easy, raising a kid like him. You expect your kid’s going to be one way but then he turns out the other. And the looks they get from other people when they mention that their son is autistic. They already cut off contact with several extended family members because of the whole autistic kid thing. He’s heard what those family members said about him...He doesn’t want to think about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t help but feel like he’s tearing the family apart. No matter how many times his parents tell him that he’s more important than bigoted family members they already didn’t like, he feels like their lives would be better without him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s something he’s working on. He’s still got a long way to go, though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Still...he’s making progress.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe, at some point, he’ll be almost normal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Or maybe that’s too much to hope for. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he can still hope.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t get out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know why he can’t get out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d been playing a VR port of Blue Shift after getting back from work and there was...a flash? He’s still not sure what happened exactly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something...The game glitched. But it was only for a second. Then everything was okay again and he could keep going. He hadn’t thought much of it, probably just a power outage or something. But when he went to take the headset off...</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It wasn’t there. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now he’s alone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t progress, can’t end the game. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s....stuck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was fun at first. He just got to fuck around all he wanted in the game. No responsibilities, no worries. It was a dream come true. It wasn’t like he knew what happened, so he couldn’t be blamed for it. He didn’t have to worry about anything, just for a little bit. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could just have fun. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had free reign of the game, able to do whatever he liked whenever he liked. He knew the game inside and out, knew what story beats happened where and where he could stay if he just wanted a break.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The longer it went on, though...The less fun it became. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The NPCs dialogue got repetitive. They couldn’t react to him like a person could, only able to spout their voice lines over and over. After a certain point, it just became noise. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know how long he’s been trapped in the game. He has no way of telling time. None of the clocks exactly work.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He misses his parents. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He misses his friends.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hell, he even misses his shitty coworkers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He needs to hear a real person’s voice again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s why he dies the first time. It’s his attempt at getting out. He thinks maybe if he dies the game will boot him out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It doesn’t, of course. He just respawns, still stuck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What terrifies him more than anything is that he felt the death. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It isn’t supposed to hurt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hadn’t thought about it before, but everything feels...too real. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His second death is an accident. He’s not paying attention and ends up mauled to death by some aliens. He feels that too. Feels the way the claws dig into his flesh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Again and again, he dies. Over and over. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t notice the memory loss until it’s too late, until he’s lost too much.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And piece by piece, Branden Hansen dies. Alone. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was doing a lot of thinking about Branden and ended up projecting pretty heavily onto him.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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